He doesn’t sound Welsh. And my confusion must show on my face as he rounds the back of his car to tackle the rear windshield. “My dad worked on oil rigs. We lived everywhere, so I don’t sound like anything.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yeah? What do I sound like, Tam?”
I can’t see his face as he wraps his voice around my name, and I’m transfixed by how his jacket rides up, revealing the swathe of ink-free skin I’ve already mapped out by creeping on him all week. “You sound like a dude who just got me in trouble with my brother.”
Bhodi doesn’t say anything for a moment. He clears the windshield, keeping his back to me, and the silence, though loaded, doesn’t feel bad. If anything, I feel calmer, like being close to him settles something inside me, which is fucking ludicrous. I don’t know this dude. He’s mylodger. The one I have to explain to Sab when he calls back later and rips me a new one.
“How much trouble are you in?”
In my daze, I’ve missed Bhodi finishing his car and moving closer. He has major bedhead. The kind that makes me want to burrow my fingers into the thick locks and count the colours. “Enough to make me think about chucking my phone off Firefly Hill.”
“Firefly Hill?”
I point to the grassy peak in the distance, dotted with only a few homes. In truth, it isn’t that high, but the sentiment stands.
Bhodi follows my finger. “The road names are amazing around here.”
“They’re deceiving. Cosmic Avenue is a shithole.”
He grins, and it’s a fucking delight. Then his gaze falls on my wrist and seriousness descends on him again. “Show me?”
I’m a stubborn bastard. Instinct has me shaking my head before I’ve truly grasped the question. But Bhodi reaches for me anyway, and my body betrays me, letting him extend my arm without protest, like it knows how much I need the sweet sensation of his fingers gliding over my skin.
Hiscoldfingers this time, that find the pain points in my wrists with lethal precision. “Flex your fingers?”
No. I try. It doesn’t go well and Bhodi gives me the good news. “Still fractured. Still needs an X-Ray.”
“Still not going.”
“You know it’s free, right?”
“I have to work.”
“With one hand?”
“I’m ambidextrous.”
Bhodi narrows his gaze, dimming the light in his eyes. “This is winding me up and I don’t even know you. How do you think your brother feels?”
“I don’t need to think about it, he tells me.”
“What’s he going to say when you get an infection in the bone from an untreated fracture?”
I sigh, out of arguments.
Bhodi’s expression softens and he rolls down my sleeve to cover my arm, avoiding the sore bits this time and patting my hand for good measure. “Do you have a phobia?”
“Of what?”
“Hospitals. Doctors.”
Denial bubbles up my throat and doesn’t quite make it out. Instead, I say something worse. “It’s complicated.”
Bhodi smiles a little—a brief ray of sunshine that leaves me wanting more. “Most things are. But I could come with you…if you want? I know how hospitals operate and sometimes that helps.”
I know how hospitals operate too, especially the one where I first laid eyes on him, and I want to tell him that, so he understands, for no tangible reason whatsoever.
